The IDSA Center for Global Health Policy and the HIV Medicine Association released a policy statement on the results of HPTN 052 with recommendations for U.S. global and domestic AIDS Policy. Entitled “U.S. Policy and Funding on AIDS Should Follow the Science,” the statement recommends that a larger share of the PEPFAR budget be devoted to treatment; that antiretroviral therapy be included as a backbone of demonstration or evaluation studies of combination prevention strategies, and that HIV counseling and testing, including couples counseling, be expanded in all venues. The policy statement also calls for an evaluation of PEPFAR prevention expenditures based on evidence of efficacy and a redeployment of resources from less efficacious interventions to those known to be effective, including ART.

The HPTN study—released formally at the International AIDS Society (IAS) conference in Rome in July—found that HIV-infected men and women with relatively healthy immune systems who received immediate ART were more than 96 percent less likely to sexually transmit the infection to their uninfected partners and more than 40 percent less likely to experience a clinical event than those whose treatment was delayed. According to the statement, “The findings from the HPTN 052 study provide further urgency to the quest to expand access to HIV treatment.”

To read the full statement, including the recommendations for domestic AIDS policy, click here.